GT Legacy

[Captain Obvious]

nice buy andrew, good to see another gen1 ser1 floating around, i still reckon they are the best shape lib!! even more so with the GT front bar, also i dont mind the scoop either but the standard one is a little more inconspicuous!!

bryan

[AndrewT]

there quad cam 2.0 turbo.....

Yer but that's abit of a genereal description, every single WRX ever released has been a "quad cam 2.0 turbo" (except the 2.5's of course).
What gives this particular motor the "slightly more bulletproof than others" qualification is the fact it's closed deck.

Little update - I've done over 10,000kms in it now. Had a few little issues along the way but nothing that major.

- Alternator died, replaced it. Stuck a much bigger battery in at the same time too.
- Did the Bosche coils conversion with new plugs - bloody hell that made a fantastic difference, I can wind the revs right out under boost now and it doesn't stutter at all
- Dropped the oil and replaced it with some expensive stuff

[AndrewT]

Thought I'd chuck abit of an update here.

Just ticked over 25,000kms since I've owned it now. It's had some minor mods.
I'm working towards handling and braking at the moment as I'm keen to see how it goes on the track. Power upgrades will come but much later.

- 4pot wrx front brakes
I bought a pair of 4pot calipers, they came with some near new slotted rotors too. Stuck them on a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately the damn GTB mags (which I was quite fond of) did not clear the new calipers! So I had to urgently rush out and buy whatever the first set of cheap wheels I could find were. I hate the new wheels, they are horrible! Cheap aftermarket things which somebody has sprayed with cheap gold paint. They clear the brakes (apparently will clear Brembos too) so that's all that matters. Needless to say, I'm on the lookout for some much better wheels now - these are simply on so I can still drive the car. For $150 including tyres with probably 80% tread I can't really complain.
New front brakes work really well, definitely a worthwhile upgrade from the stock ones.

- Strut braces
I bought a set of three braces from Ultrex. Front one made a small difference, the rear made a HUGE difference. Takes corners much better now. I also have an underbody H brace but haven't installed that yet, I'll probably wait until I do a gearbox swap so I don't have to do it twice.

The struts and springs are still the originals and are really quite badly worn out. Car floats around like a boat (altho a little better now with the braces).
I have just secured a full set of Tein coilovers to remedy the situation. Should have them in a week or two. I hope they aren't too severe as this car is my daily/work car.

Also have secured a pair of rear 2pot calipers which should compliment the front 4pots nicely. The fronts were a bolton but these rears requires abit more work. Have also sourced the required hubs and backing plates which need to be swapped in. Hoping these will arrive in about a week.

I'm trying to save up to purchase a manual gearbox and clutch. Planning to go to an sti 4.444 5spd box (handy because the rear vlsd is already 4.4).

I've bought a 2.7-turn-to-lock steering rack from a WRX (mine is 3.3 ttl as standard) so I'll be putting that in soon. Really need to get onto that as my one leaks fluid everywhere.

Power upgrades are a low priority at the moment but eventually that will consist of a bigger turbo, front mount IC, bigger injectors, fuel pump, power FC. I'll do that all at once, but probably much later.

Loving the practicality of this car. I chuck heaps of crap in it every week for work (loaded sky high with computer junk mostly). Last weekend I was towing fully loaded 6x4 trailers of sand around when we re-did the front gardens. Haven't used the roofracks yet but I'm sure they'll come in handy someday.


Here's a pic of how she looks right now. Vomit buckets ready for the awful mags....

[guyph_01]

hey andrew, nice work on the wagon:)
hummm i know its not a 4.444 but i saw this on perth wrx
http://www.perth-wrx.com/vb/showthread.php?t=33327

Anyway keep up the great work:)

[timmo]

Paint the wheels charcoal, ditch the wrx scoop & refit a rear bumper skirt and it will look great!

[Chris_Rogers]

rear brakes - what is under there at teh moment?
what needs changing? (considering doing mine and need to know what you changed.)

[AndrewT]

rear brakes it has the standard single-pot calipers and badly flogged out rotors (probably the originals). The 2pots need the matching hubs and backing plates from the later model WRX's. Have to make sure to get the hubs to suit R160 rear end as there are also 2pot ones that only suit R180 driveshafts, different spline count.

Yeah, I agree with all your comments Timmo.
Wheels will be replaced with better ones. It's not just the colour, I don't like the style of these either.
Bonnet scoop I plan to replace with a standard RS scoop at some stage.
Rear bumper skin, I have that, but had to remove it to fit the towbar. Only way to refit it is to hack a section of it out for the towbar tongue to pass through. I might do that at some stage.

[AndrewT]

Just secured this little baby for it too. Custom designed to suit RS (don't have to hack the bumper to pieces to make it fit). Brand new kit, never even used.

[AndrewT]

Bit of an update if anyone's interested in a boring street car

- Brakes
Have now fitted 2pot rears, pulls up better now, they really compliment the 4pot fronts.

- Suspension
Have now fitted a full set of Tein HA coilovers.


Had to adjust the ride height up heaps for these because the previous owner had his car absolutely *dumped*.
The ride is incredible now. Huge improvement to cornering. Naturally it's a heaps bumpier ride now but I'm told these are normally way less severe than other brands.

- Manual conversion
This is *about* to happen. Probably in a few weekend's time I will tackle it. Took a while to source all the bits but this is what I've aquired;
- Manual centre console bit with gearstick boot, correct colour for the car
- Shifter linkage
- 2002 wrx 4.444 5spd box with 50,000kms on it
- brand new MRT sti gearbox mount
- manual crossmember setup
- manual tailshaft
- remanufactured clutch setup (reconned pressure plate with new up-rated spring and machined friction surface), new organic clutch disc, machined manual flywheel
- chucked gearbox's electric speedo pickup and obtained the correct short extension piece to hook to my existing machnically driven cable
- brake pedal, clutch pedal setups
- hydraulic master and slave cylinder from a 2003 wrx
So yeh - got everything I need, just need a solid day to swing spanners and make it happen!


- Power upgrade
Have sourced and aquired all these bits so far, but waiting to do it all at once
- VF34 turbo
- 440cc injectors
- 500hp Walbro fuel pump
- FMIC pictured in previous post
Still need to sort out a parallel fuel rail setup and a 3" dump pipe.
Also need to purchase a PowerFC ECU - these are pretty hard to find now due to rarity, they are discontinued. I have a few available to me but no funds to get one! Hopefully in a few weeks.

[AlpineRaven]

Ooooh nice mate
Cheers
AP

[ToyRX]

Sounding and looking really good Andrew - I miss my old Gen1 GX sometimes.....
Did you know what sort of "stutter" were you getting before the coil conversion? Det, faulty coil pack, etc?

[AndrewT]

It was just intermittently not firing on multiple cylinders under mid to heavy load.
Changing spark plugs made no difference.
Installing the new coils and leads fixed it instantly.

my conclusion - faulty coils

[D3V1L]

might drop past tomorrow night on me way home from work and have a squiz me spinx

[Suby Roo]

Sounding good mate, I'm going down a similar route with mine, except td05ing it and using a microtech ecu

[Subafury]

pretty boring jk its got more mods than mine so i cant talk
dump it.
looked awes on the rs the coilovers came off

[AndrewT]

Smashed out the 5spd manual conversion on the weekend. She's now sporting the 4.444 5spd from a 2002 WRX with 50,000kms on it and a brand new clutch. Also a brand new "STI" gearbox mount, WOW!

Bit of a job largely unassisted (altho thanks to Devil Dave for the moral support when I was stuck on a rounded exhaust bolt). Also thanks to Gary (WALibBoy on another forum) for giving me a quick hand maneuvering the auto onto the floor for a couple of minutes.

Did the job on Saturday arvo / all of Sunday / some of Monday night, altho only got it driving last night. I had to post up a question on RSlibertyclub forum to ask exactly which wires I needed to bridge in the old Auto trans wiring loom to make the ignition circuit think it's in Park - starter motor wasn't allow to work otherwise! Snip-snip, solder, heatshrink, fired up straight away!

~20min test drive last night revealed zero problems except needing to adjust the pedal a little, and I've driven to work this morning in peak hour traffic (many many clutch pedal operations) and no problems at all.


The car is a couple of doors down at an exhaust place right now. I bought a nice muffler off a guy a few days ago to replace the $2 Canon that came with the car. It's off a 2003 WRX so will need some of it's pipes chopped up and re-made and possibly the hangers moved. Should be a little quieter and much less drone. Normally I'd have a go at sticking it on with the Mig welder but I'm very much running out of time - we are driving up to Geraldton (about a 5 hour trip north to get there) on Friday. This is actually the first time a "mechanic" is touching the car since I've had it, except for when I got the wheels balanced.

The trip to Gerro will certainly be a good test for the new gearbox anyways.

[Subafury]

*likes this status*

[Alex]

*likes this status*

facebook whore.

and good stuff andrew

especially considering you got it all done yourself!

alex

[D3V1L]

well done andrew... would have helped a bit more...lol...but i did have to race off again pretty quick.

must come past and take me for a spin, or ill come chase ya in the brumby

davo

[Subafury]

u still driving the brumby dave? havent heard much about it lately...

when are we cruisin andrew?